Locked coffin skydive pulls off

SERENA, Illinois: A daredevil freed himself from shackles and a locked casket while plummeting to Earth at 130 miles per hour on Tuesday, eventually parachuting gently into a northern Illinois field.
Anthony Martin, 47, waved to the cameras and the crowd that turned out to watch his stunt after he landed at a farm in Serena, Illinois, about 70 miles southwest of Chicago.
Martin said the escape was exhilarating but that he was disoriented because the plywood casket whipped wildly from side-to-side while he picked the locks, and he struggled to open the door.
“I didn’t feel any force, but what I felt was lot a of jostling,” he told The Associated Press. “It seemed to me like I had a glimpse of the ground for a second then it (the door) came back and I had to give it another push.”
Martin, who began teaching himself to pick locks at age 6, somersaulted out of the box as he pushed his way to freedom.
“I didn’t know where I was ... but I was hypnotized as I watched the box falling behind me,” he said.
The mood on the plane was somber as it ascended to 14,000 feet. All the skydivers involved in the stunt carefully checked the others’ equipment before Martin climbed into the box and was handcuffed to a belt around his waist and chained to the inside of the casket. A prison door lock for which no key exists was screwed into place to hold the door tight as two of the skydivers checked for sight of the proposed landing area from the open door of the plane, a Short SC.7 Skyvan.
When everyone was ready, a drogue attached to the top of the box was tossed from the door, sucking the casket from the aircraft. A drogue is a small parachute similar to those used to slow drag-racing cars and fighter jets. Two skydivers also held on to handles to further steady the casket as others shot video and stills of the escape-or-die jump.
The box rocked from side to side until around 6,500 feet when the Wisconsin native emerged and tracked away from the casket before deploying his parachute.
“It was one of the greatest feelings ever knowing that one of your best friends has again escaped death,” said Rook Nelson, a national champion skydiver. He coached Martin in the weeks leading up to the jump.